Friday, October 31, 2008

Here's Lilah's first Halloween (2007) She was small enough to fit into a pumpkin (sniffle, sniffle...) Don't worry, the pumpkin was lined with a plastic grocery bag so she stayed nice and dry. Jeez, I guess she was small enough to fit into a grocery bag as well.... Awwww....

Saturday, October 18, 2008

We took advantage of a beautiful October day and took L to her first pumpkin patch. It was a great place with a petting zoo, corn maze, straw bales maze for the kiddies, pony rides, a pumpkin launch, and hay rides. If my sister doesn't already have Bi-Zi Farms on her company's website (http://www.onethousandthingstodo.com/) then I will write something up and post it there! Let me know Nicole.....

Nick informed me on Thursday that he arranged to have L spend the night at my parents on Friday night. So I dropped Lilah off Friday afternoon and hurried back to Vancouver. In my excitement, I got pulled over by a cop outside of Delta park. SIGH. It was a like another "I love Luc-- err, Heather" moment, 'cause the ticket was not cheap. (Luckily Nick is developing the patience of Job.)

So, after playing with the Appy project (see below post), Nick took me out to a nice sit-down dinner downtown. (Read -- the Panda Express off of Burnside.) Then, we gathered a group of friends for a night on the town. We stayed out until the wee hours in the morning, then slept in this morning until 10:30. It was awesome. (As a sidenote -- I can't believe all the nights we did this sort of thing before Lilah and just took it for granted. That's a thought for those of you that don't have kids!!) Anyway, after a quiet, adults-only breakfast, we happily went back to parenthood.

Thank you Nana and Grandpa Paco for baby-sitting! We had a great time!

I have still been working with the 5 year-old unbrokenApp gelding. I have learned his name is "Whisky", but I don't think the name really fits. So I refer to him as "the app" or "that horse" or simply "Whisk".

He is a challenge to work with -- he is accustomed to doing what he wants, so he likes to tune me out at the drop of a hat and find scary objects to spook at. He also has a little bit of a temper on him, so when I ask for his attention again (or otherwise piss him off) he likes to turn his butt to me and kick out. Bad, bad, bad. He is also super-athletic and can put his feet and body together in an impressive display of bucks, kicks, spins, and bolts.

However, he is coming along. His temper-tantrums are becoming fewer, and he's learning to look to me as the leader (which means he's kicking towards me less) Believe it or not, he is very sweet and friendly, and is very curious about new things. He is also pretty smart (for good or bad) and likes to have a job to do. It is a shame to me that someone just left him in a field to rot for the last four years.

I think it has been about a month now, and he has gone from this:

To this:

To this!! :

Nick helped me climb on him the first time. I got on and off about three times, and each time Nick led the horse (with me on his back) in a small circle back to the mounting block.

The poor horse did a Frankenstein-stagger walk, fish-tailed, and stalled out a couple times with me on him, but never tried bucking or any other explosive maneuvers. Nonetheless, I'm going to go back to ground-driving him until he's more comfortable being steered via reins. Then I'll have Nick come back out and help me some more.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Lilah has been in love with this thing for the last two weeks. I keep waiting for her to get sick of it so I can put it out with the recycling, but clearly I have to wait longer. Lilah loves to parade around with it on her head, and when she gets sick of that she likes to climb in and out of it. She'll even sit down it in and say "Da-da!!" which is Nick's cue to begin pushing her around the house while she sits regally in it.

Lilah also likes to pick it up and move it from room to room. She likes to put her toys in it, then take it out, then put the toys back in. And the box even doubles (or triples?) as something to climb on! She likes to strategically place it by the couch, or Simon, so that when she is standing on top of the box, she can then begin climbing over the next object.

The other day, Oprah Winfrey did a show on a woman who forgot about her child in her car for 8 hours in extreme heat. When she finally did remember, the baby had died. True story, and it has honestly haunted me since then. The morale of the show was for mothers to slow down, take things one step at a time, ect, ect, in order to avoid mistakes.

It was approximately 15 minutes after the show that I, while cleaning the house, decided Lilah was probably ready for her nap. I began filling up the kitchen sink, reminded myself not to forget about the water running and left the kitchen to do something else (I forget). Then I read Lilah her stories, and took my sweet time putting her down.

When I finally returned to the kitchen (maybe 20 minutes or so later) I found water everywhere. There was a good inch of water all over the kitchen floor, and a good 1/2 inch spilled out into the dining room. (The picture is taken after some major clean-up) Water had slipped under the side door leading to the basement, pooled at the top of the stairs, and then continued down the stairs. In addition, water had somehow slipped through the floorboards and begun dripping through the ceiling in the basement directly onto our fancy printer and computer gear. The water then shorted out our electrical system, which set off our fire alarms, right when the baby was sleeping -- natch. (Luckily she slept through it)

I was amazed at amount of water in such a short period of time. It was something out of a "I Love Lucy" episode. So, just like Lucille Ball, I called my Desi home from work.

When Nick came home, the house was ringing with the fire alarms and water was every where.

Nick, who is almost always upbeat and happy, became .... UPSET. (Honestly, it was the most pissed I had ever seen the guy, even more than the time I stood him up when we were dating). So I avoided him like the plague while he sullenly pulled his computer gear from Niagra Falls. Every once in a while I heard a word or two muttered from the basement that made me glad L was still asleep.

It took us the rest of the night to clean the house up. When Lilah woke up, we tried keeping her contained to a play pen, and when that didn't work we just let her play in the water. (It was like Disneyland to her) The next day we paid for an electrician to come out and determine that while the damage was extensive, nothing permanent had been done and we would not start any fires when our electrical system was reconnected.

Meanwhile, after making it up to Nick, I have determined I will never again forget and leave the water running, and I will try to slow down and take one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is not my friend.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

A few weeks back, I casually mentioned to both Nans (Nana & Nanny) that Lilah was short on light-weight sleepers for the fall.

As a result and along with the help of sisters on both sides of the family, this happened:

All in all, there are now about 15 sleepers in our household.

I wanted to say thank you to the fam for continuing to cloth Lilah. :)

Nick and I also wanted to say THANK YOU to all guilty parties who baby-sat Lilah while Nick and I played at Shasta. It was AWESOME to get away from our responsibilities. Our families had figured out a rotation system for Lilah so that everyone got to spend some time with her. Thank you guys!! We love you!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Ahhhh.... The adults-only trip to Shasta in the fall.... It is a beautiful thing. The weather was hot, the water was warm, and we were with a great group of people. There was the usual Shasta debachary, and Nick and I felt like we were back in pre-baby times enjoying a care-free vacation.

Group shot!

The Jones Valley Marina. The lake was the lowest I'd ever seen it, and we had to drive about a mile out on where the lake should've been to reach this marina.

Of course we played drinking games, but after about the third game, we switched to being forced to eat this salsa -- the Salsa from Hell!! --- instead of drinking because it was super-super-super hot. Michael made it.

I tried wake-boarding for the first time. I even kinda got up, but then immediately fell down, because I'm not sure if I really want to wake-board. After all, I seen plenty of crashes. Case in point -- check out Nick's crash on video a little further down....

Margarita, sunglasses, boat... Can it get any better?

My brother-in-law -- master sea Captain.

Medusa -- errr -- Erin over the heating vent. She reported her hair was dry in 2 minutes!

Roger wake-boarding. He's a pro!

And I've had this guy's baby?? :)

Yay Shasta!!

Simon, who has never been quite the same after his accident, was very anxious when we were swimming or on the ski boat. In fact, if Nick and I were both on the ski boat, Simon would howl for us from the houseboat until we got back or traveled out of his ear-shot. I was amazed at how well Simon could hear us from great distances. Of course, if we started to drown, I think Simon probably would have just watched us and whined, because for the first time ever he was also reluctant to get into the water and swim himself.

Yahteez! It is tradition to play yahteez on the top of the houseboat in the hot sun -- then all players jump in when someone rolls a yahteez!

Life is so tough at Shasta... This is our new friend Rosie (Michael's girlfriend -- she's a vet!)

Um, I was trying to give the camera a sexy look as Nick applied suntan lotion. I don't think I pulled it off....

Michael jumping in....

Ha-ha. This wasn't from our houseboat, but the cost of gas is one reason we try not to motor around on the houseboat more than needed.

Sweet! Nick found another willing participant to back-flip with!Awww....

Erin and me!

Speaking of wake-board crashes.... Nick needs a new party trick to perform on his wake-board, and Michael had talked him into trying back-flips on the 'board. There were a lot of crashes, and Nick finally decided to research it a little more before continuing. Surprisingly, the only injury he walked away with from repeated falls was a spained big toe, from where the binding on the board holds his foot.

Live shot of the back-flips with Nick and Darren!

If you want to see yet another Shasta video and more Shasta pics, check out Michael's pictures online at http://picasaweb.google.com/mpriley/LakeShasta . If you have the chance, check out the video of Rosie & I biscuitting. It is the very, very last picture on the left side of the screen, at the bottom. Our dismount is comical, especially with the boys laughing at us.